- #1
sb635
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Is there an Instant in Time That's Everywhere "The Present"
We sit in a room. I see you and you see me. We both understand we are seeing each other as we "were" a small time interval in the past. The speed of light is finite and the distance traveled by the light from me to you, and you to me, is nonzero, and it takes time for the light to travel. But does not this demand that the matter that makes you and I up was both physically present at this, say, "common instant of light reflecting from you and me"? Snap your fingers perfectly, an instantaneous snap. Is there so meting physically "going on" on the other side of the Earth then? I say yes, even if I am not observing it. On the moon? Yes. On the Sun? Yes. In a Galaxy billions of light years away? Yes. To me, everywhere at once, there is a physical instant in time that is "The Present."
We sit in a room. I see you and you see me. We both understand we are seeing each other as we "were" a small time interval in the past. The speed of light is finite and the distance traveled by the light from me to you, and you to me, is nonzero, and it takes time for the light to travel. But does not this demand that the matter that makes you and I up was both physically present at this, say, "common instant of light reflecting from you and me"? Snap your fingers perfectly, an instantaneous snap. Is there so meting physically "going on" on the other side of the Earth then? I say yes, even if I am not observing it. On the moon? Yes. On the Sun? Yes. In a Galaxy billions of light years away? Yes. To me, everywhere at once, there is a physical instant in time that is "The Present."